Courting Crime / Mystery Suspense Author

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When I started practicing criminal trial law, forty years ago, (ouch!) I recall that in my judicial district of about 60 judges, only two were women. In the prosecutor’s criminal division there was only one woman out of about twenty male prosecutors. As they say, it was a different world then. The days when a male judge could …

Author, teacher, and really funny woman, Anne Lamott has always inspired my writing. She’s written several books herself, but her most well-known book is, Bird by Bird. It’s a book about both writing and life. I know—there are probably more books on self-discovery than there are people interested in really discovering themselves. But this one’s different.

In an unusual but legally appropriate way, the judge in the Jeronimo Yanez trial wrote a letter to the jury. Often, a judge will invite the jurors back into the chambers (office) after a trial has finished. The public gets a chance to see what the office looks like and can ask questions of the judge about the …

In St. Paul, Minnesota the end of a tragic event has finally happened. A police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, shot and killed Philando Castile in a traffic stop in a suburb of St. Paul. It triggered protests, questions, and crying. It forced a searing look at the interactions between police and citizens. Statistics show that the chances of anyone …

As I’m sure you’re all aware, after years of lurid headlines in the media, Bill Cosby was accused and tried on several criminal counts of sexual assault. His trial is approaching the 10th day in Pennsylvania—with the jury unable to come to a decision. I worked for over 30 years as a criminal lawyer and tried over 100 …

Imagine if you’re living in Oregon or Colorado and using marijuana under your doctor’s care. Along comes the U.S. Department of Justice to arrest for violating federal laws prohibiting marijuana possession. Sound crazy? In the near future, the feds may arrest you for possessing medical marijuana.

The new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has been joined by others in …

My new book, The Inca Code, is officially published this Friday, June 9!

When investigator, Pete Chandler, gets a call for help from an old friend and colleague at the U.S. Export/Import Bank in South America, Pete drops everything to go. Before he can get there, the friend dies in a freak accident—he falls from a tourist …